Tag: news

When Franklin D Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself,” Roosevelt was referring to the depression and turning the U.S. economy around. The biggest reason to fear is fear; fear causes growth of government and fear is expensive.

Opinion news is loaded with stories of what we should fear and calls for the government to ‘do more’ to protect us. There are an endless amount of editorials about how ‘fill in the blank’ will destroy America, which elevate concerns to comic book level scenarios of doom and call upon government to protect us.

Here is a list of Super Villains the DC Hall of Justice is on the lookout for:

Terrorist – foreign and domestic

Climate Change

Illicit Drugs

Rogue States

Health Care costs

Recession or Depression

Excess body fat

Eco-Terrorism

Big Banks – foreign and domestic

Patriot Groups

Illegal Immigration and Arizonans

And that is the short list,–there are a host of other things we are supposed to be afraid of that, as George Carlin said, “could infect your mind, curve your spine and lose the war for the Allies.” In all the above, the underlying argument often used is leaving them unchecked will lead to the eventual destruction of America.

Its debatable if any of the above issues might actually lead to our demise, but its’ not debatable the price for all our fears is expensive because people look to government to calm their fears. As long as we’re cutting back on things in general, consider cutting back on fear and fear mongering.

It’s fine to express concern; but save the annihilation analogies only for things that actually cause total destruction, like a huge asteroid hitting earth. Lots of things could harm our country, but the list of things that could destroy the county is a lot less than we’ve been led to believe.

I stumbled across this YouTube video of former CNN reporter Charles Jaco during the Gulf War. The rumor that the video was fake has been floating around the internet for some time.

Charles Jaco CNN 1990 Persian Gulf War

The poster on YouTube said, “Google his name and read the results.” There were so many Google hits labeling this video fake, I thought I would save others some time searching for the answers.

At first glance, I thought the video had been faked, but after digging into it, they were really just shooting on the roof of the hotel at night. What appears to be a studio blue screen is really just the color of the hotel where they were shooting.

Charles Jaco sent an email to several blogs that mentioned the video.

First the facts of the case: our coverage was on the roof of a hotel and military facility near the intersection of the two main runways at the Dhahran Air Base, Western Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The plywood background was erected as a guard against sand and wind storms. The clowning around on the video is just that. We used black humor to deflect the tension of covering SCUD missile assaults.

If you look at 1:36 in the video, you can see what appears to be a small satellite dish. Here is the frame, the bottom edge of the satellite dish is between the crewman’s hand the wall just above the electrical cord. Using a satellite dish outside makes sense; inside a studio using a satellite dish does not make sense.

If there was any question if Jaco was really in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, I think this video answers that question. At two minutes in the video, you can tell its being shot outside.

In the Ad Agencinem fallacy – If an actor or model is used in a political ad, the political message itself is false by association. The underlying argument is if the everyday people in the photos aren’t people who’ve actually said they are against an issue, then there aren’t any everyday people opposed the issue.

If there was a disclosure requirement every time an actor or stock photo is used in advertising, then virtually every advertisement would require a disclaimer. As-seen-on-TV commercials would need an explanation that the anguished looks on the actors’ faces were put-on, just to make sure no one thought the people weren’t acting.

It is a given people in advertisements have been paid for the use of their likeness. Not pointing out that a person was paid to have their picture used in an ad is not a political deception.

Big Oil is using fake “Americans” to defend billions in tax subsidies. The American Petroleum Institute is running full-page ads in Politico and Roll Call that attack Congress for “new energy taxes”:

The target of this ad is the Obama administration’s effort to remove $36 billion in loopholes and subsidies for the oil industry. As it turns out, the “Americans” presented in the ad are stock photos from Getty Images:

As one commenter on ThinkProgress put it:

pakaal says: API used an ad agency to make an ad for them. The ad agency used stock photos, as all ad agencies do. There is nothing newsworthy in that, and anyone who has worked in an ad agency would agree.

The use of stock images is not anything new. Here is an article about the same stock photos being used multiple times for different companies. Washington Street Journal – When Marketers See Double

The ad from Key Bank portrayed a heart-warming family moment: a dad pointing out something on his laptop to his smiling young daughter as she leans over his shoulder. In fact, the scene may have been a little too charming. The same image appears in a recent marketing brochure — from Bank of America.

Both banks say they bought the image from a photo agency that deals in stock pictures, not realizing the other was making the same selection. “We try not to use the same images as other competitors … if it happened, it happened,” says Joan Peloso, marketing services director for Cleveland-based KeyCorp, the bank-based financial services company

No one can tell from a photo if the people are Americans. You can tell they represent what Americans look like. If the ad agency had drawn pictures of typical Americans, there wouldn’t be an issue. There is no misrepresentation in the ad, because those photos are what Americans look like.

For a real example of misrepresentation in advertising, all you need to do is look at this ad right next to the article on ThinkProgress.

Clicking on the I lost my stomach in 4 weeks ad takes you to an Acai Berry Diet page. The ad has “Julia from News 6” volunteering to go on the diet.

To get started, I volunteered to be the guinea pig. I applied for a bottle of the Acai Optimum. While there are ton’s of Acai berry ads online, Acai Optimum is one of the most credible and trustworthy suppliers on the market. It included the free* trial of the product and it did not try to fool me into agreeing to additional hidden offers.

The person pictured as “Julia from News 6”–as everyone on Fark knows–is actually Mélissa Theuriau, French journalist and news anchor.

I’m a firm believer that the institutions of society should be independent from one another; each institution that becomes too entwined with another isn’t doing justice to its primary role. Watching the Sunday morning news shows, I discovered another example of the damage caused by lack of this independence.

I was watching Alex Witt on MSNBC News LiveSunday morning and the next story up was another report about the Olympics. I flipped over to CNN because I’ve been getting annoyed with MSNBC pimping NBC’s coverage of the Olympics on their news channel.

Over on CNN’s Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz, the subject was about FOX News crossing boundaries. FOX had covered Glenn Beck‘s speech at CPAC live on their network. Since I had just flipped from MSNBC pimping one of their shows, I thought here is another example of a cable network (FOX) pimping one of their shows (Glenn Beck).

I watch the rest of Reliable Sources until State of the Union with Candy Crowley comes on. Candy Crowley starts the show out by holding an upcoming cover of Time magazine. The Time cover was the subject for State of the Union. CNN and Time magazine are both owned by Time Warner. In other words, here is CNN pimping Time magazine.

Twenty minutes of channel flipping really brought home all the complaints I’ve heard for years about cable news being too corporate. They all claim to be impartial and unbiased, but boundaries of independent reporting are gone and their shows have turned into commercials for other arms of their corporation.

I don’t want to search the internet for each story cable news reports on to find out what connection the channel has to the subject they are reporting on. If there is anyone out there willing to start a completely independent cable news channel, you got at least one customer who will tune in to watch.

I’m a firm believer that the institutions of society should be independent from one another; each institution that becomes too entwined with another isn’t doing justice to its primary role. Watching the Sunday morning news shows, I discovered another example of the damage caused by lack of this independence.

I was watching Alex Witt on MSNBC News LiveSunday morning and the next story up was another report about the Olympics. I flipped over to CNN because I’ve been getting annoyed with MSNBC pimping NBC’s coverage of the Olympics on their news channel.

Over on CNN’s Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz, the subject was about FOX News crossing boundaries. FOX had covered Glenn Beck‘s speech at CPAC live on their network. Since I had just flipped from MSNBC pimping one of their shows, I thought here is another example of a cable network (FOX) pimping one of their shows (Glenn Beck).

I watch the rest of Reliable Sources until State of the Union with Candy Crowley comes on. Candy Crowley starts the show out by holding an upcoming cover of Time magazine. The Time cover was the subject for State of the Union. CNN and Time magazine are both owned by Time Warner. In other words, here is CNN pimping Time magazine.

Twenty minutes of channel flipping really brought home all the complaints I’ve heard for years about cable news being too corporate. They all claim to be impartial and unbiased, but boundaries of independent reporting are gone and their shows have turned into commercials for other arms of their corporation.

I don’t want to search the internet for each story cable news reports on to find out what connection the channel has to the subject they are reporting on. If there is anyone out there willing to start a completely independent cable news channel, you got at least one customer who will tune in to watch.

BBC One show Rip Off Britain had a show about convenience stores charging more than grocery stores. It seemed odd to me to have a show on the subject, because who doesn’t know a convenience store charges more? Why waste time warning people about something they learned as kids? How do you follow up a report like that? A story about fire is hot, fire burns?

I don’t mean any offense to the UK. The show Rip Off Britain is not a reflection on the intelligence of its citizens. In the US, almost any nightly newscast will have parental reminders along the lines of reminding you to put coat on because its cold outside, or too much sunlight will burn your skin.

Still, there were probably a few people out there that benefited from the show pointing out convenience stores charge more. Its just as likely someone benefits when they are reminded to use suntan lotion or put a coat on.

The political events of the last few years have had me wondering basically the same thing about politics. Do people need to be continually reminded about how politics work? Is a story about government incompetence news? Maybe people should be reminded from time to time about the dangers of politics.

Local news programs should have safety tips for forgetful voters prior to elections?

Politicians promises are more likely to be broken than kept.

If they are the lesser of two evils, it means they still screw some things up.

They can’t be on your side and working for everyone at the same time.

Corruption follows power and money around.

Whatever they say it will cost should be doubled or tripled.

Contrary to what most politicians believe, not every problem has a solution.

There has been a lot of political discussion about the tragedy in Haiti. Below is a list of several possible explanations, gathered from the internet and TV. Please vote for what you believe is the most likely cause of the disaster.

Big pharmaceutical companies are donating heavily to Martha Coakley. If Coakley wins the special election to replace U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy on Tuesday, Coakley will vote for the passage of the health care reform bill. Pharmaceutical companies wouldn’t be backing Coakley if they didn’t stand to gain from passage of health care reform.